Roosevelt's third term and the voice from the sewers

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In the first half of 1940 only one question mattered in American politics. Would Franklin D. Roosevelt break with tradition and run for a third term as President of the United States? The New York Times proclaimed it as 'the all-absorbing political riddle'.

Roosevelt kept the country guessing right up until the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago in July 1940. On the second day of the convention, a message from FDR was read out.

It announced that the President had no desire to continue in office or to be nominated for election. It produced a stunned and shocked silence.

Suddenly, the quiet was shattered by a voice thundering over the loudspeakers.

'We want Roosevelt!

We want Roosevelt!'

But did the President want a third term?

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Music credits

The theme music is Newsroom by Riot.

The other music featured in this episode was Run, Chance and Denouement, all by Kai Engel and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kai_Engel/